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Rafe Nauen - Constellations, Theory and Practice (Family Constellations)
- 3. Money
Constellations are about mapping the elements of a system that appear when you ask that
system to reveal. The map then helps the individual to become acutely aware of the part he or
she plays in the bigger picture of their life, work, or simple journey.
In this book I sometimes refer to he, sometimes she but in all cases I am alluding to either or
both.
In working with individuals it is often true that the issue or challenge appears to be outside
that individual, and resides instead in the system to which she belongs. The constellation
model enables the facilitator/therapist to enquire into that system by using representatives of
the observed elements of the system.
Introduction
I got into constellation work as a result of needing personal counselling in connection with
the imminent death of my then wife Maia. The psychotherapist Isaac Pizer introduced me to
constellations therapy almost straight away and I was blown away. It showed that I could see
what I was carrying in my life, what belonged to me and what didn’t. That story is described
more fully in my first book Family Constellations – Unravelling the mystery of our ancestral
timeline.
I have had a number of career channels in my life thus far, and the work seemed to fit exactly
with what I wanted to do next. The study brought up the fact that constellations (so called
because the apparent connection between constellations in the sky is not by any physical
means – they just appear to be grouped thus, because that’s how we observe them – in systems,
or groups! And so it is with businesses and families – even health and money may reveal
influences from outside the individual that can be cleared by enquiring into the system.
I find that many people and businesses would welcome a virtual map of the influences and
people inside and outside their organisation especially if it were simple, and not require any
prior adaptions or changes. Here is the answer to that particular prayer. However what will
also be explored in the training, and in these books, is how these matters also relate to health
wellbeing and even money. The example I use a lot is a stereotype. A woman in her late fifties
whose children have left home finds herself drawn to assisting and supporting more. Her
mother, no in her early eighties needs hospital visits and doctors’ appointments, and
occasionally the shopping being done. More and more the daughter finds herself saying,
don’t worry, I’ll do it for you. Gradually she begins to say to herself and friends etc., that it
would be better if she were ill – she could cope better than her mother. And lo and behold the
universe obliges with ensuing illness for the daughter – welcomed in. The sad part is that it
will not have helped her mother a single bit.
Chapter 1 – Systems thinking
- 4. What is a system, and what do we mean by it in this context? A system is any identifiable
group of people. WE all belong to family of origin with an essential mother and father –
without whom we would not exist at all. How they managed the pressures of that world is
possibly the subject of a constellation for the reader! It is certainly described in more detail in
this context in the book Family Constellations - Unravelling the mystery of your ancestral
timeline by Rafe Nauen ISBN 978-1500573911. But that is just one system that we belong to
and constellation work holds good in ANY system, be it a school, a prison, a workplace or
your family group. All systems are defined by the rules of belonging and the loyalties that
pertain. All systems on close inspection have distinct rules – in my family, for instance we
were expected to talk “properly”. Failure to observe had consequences, and so it is with all
systems, be it a subscription has to be paid to a club for instance, or people may speculate
what rules applied to be a member of the Waffen SS. Until recently a rule in England stated
that marriages consist only of one man and one woman. The rules now allow for two people
of the same sex. A system therefore is any group defined by the relationship they have to each
other – family, workgroup, board of directors and so on. In much of my work, I am dealing
with family systems, but the rules apply to any grouping of people or things that might be
regarded as a system – even down to a chronic illness – that will be discussed in a later
chapter, but by way of example someone has a painful broken leg. Clearly the problem is in
the leg, or perhaps they are even more precise and say their knee is the issue, but their lack of
mobility will have a profound effect on what they are able to do. They might have suffered
some severe trauma getting the original damage to the knee, so could have nightmares, quite
apart from the normal sleep deprivation from pain. That may mean that they get annoyed or
upset more than would be normal for them. The family then will have to rally round –
transport, maybe the bedroom is inaccessible so things will change in the house, and maybe
there is a sudden drop in income that coincides with a sudden increase in costs, so worry in
the family will increase. So you can see that looking at basic elements on their own is a far
from perfect way to arrive at successful outcomes, and sometimes it can be far more useful to
look at the system.
Chapter 2 - What is a constellation?
So, what is a constellation (apart from a group of stars) – well fundamentally, it’s a living
map that reveals the hidden dynamics of any system.
A Constellation is an experiential model for looking into the mechanics of any system. By
experiential I mean to say that all the outcomes appear from the work itself (literally from
experience) – there is no formulae for the outcomes from the observable inputs – so the
facilitator needs to have the confidence to simply observe and let the work take its course,
with gentle guidance rather than determined manipulations.
The starting point is always someone who wants to look at an issue, perhaps there’s a
recurrent problem at work, or some situation that they can’t quite come to grips with. It may
be a forced change within the system – a death, a birth, a marriage or a divorce, or
“problems” with a child’s behaviour may becoming noticeably difficult to deal with.
- 5. Constellations are a powerful way of working with such issues. Rather than look at the
individual or the place where the problem is, we look at the whole system. That’s because an
individual is always part of a much wider interconnected system, and the problem may just be
a symptom of something that’s actually happening elsewhere. That was exactly true in my
case, and I shall be using my own experience as well as other people’s whose constellations I
have facilitated further on in this book.
What we do is set up a visual spatial representation of that system. Ideally we use people to
represent the different parts of the system so it becomes a living map or constellation, but
pieces of felt on a floor, post it notes specially manufactured directional pieces of plastic or
wood, or even PlayPeople™ can be used. We then ask those representatives to listen to their
feelings, their sensations and their intuitions and what happens is that the underlying dynamics
of the system come to the surface. It seems that simply the client giving permission for an
element of their existence to be represented is enough for the display of the dynamics to
begin. Many hundreds of thousands of workshops have been noted and written up, and they all
show that some hidden dynamics have been revealed that have lain hidden previously. In the
case of plastic pieces, the client places the representative blocks as he see fit, and the
facilitator has to do a bit more work to engage with the system, and to begin any dialogue.
Chapter 3 – The laws of being Human
There appear to be natural laws for humans that have been closely observed over many years,
and from many situations, not to mention the thousands of constellation workshops that have
been recorded where these aspects pertain. Many of these aspects could well come under the
heading common sense, but quite a few have unexpected elements.
We all accept that the law of gravity exists, and we don’t have to continually check to see if it
is in operation. The human laws appear to be a little more subtle, and hence many people will
fail to notice, sometimes repeatedly. For instance there is a law that what comes later takes
precedence over what comes before. This law is there to ensure that youngest children get
what they need – a one year old is less at risk than a 3 day old. However it also means that a
man who has a child within an affair possibly believes he has choices over who to stay with –
and in truth he probably doesn’t – eventually he will discover that the child that came last takes
precedence. The world is littered with the results of ignoring that law!
So, what are these laws?
1. Everyone has an equal right to belong - everyone who enters a system (a new baby for
example) has a right to as much love as anyone else, and it can be shown that having
“favourites” causes issues down the line. It seems from extensive scrutiny that the system
always manages to balance out any imbalances that have been injected into the system – for
instance when a child is forgotten, somewhere a repeat of the situation or similar may recur.
2. Things that come before have to give way to things that come later - an older sibling has to
allow his or her world to change a little for the survival of the system, and his or her place
- 6. within it. That ensures that growing systems do not have built in neglect.
3. Later systems take precedence over older systems. If someone has a child in the context of
an affair, it can be pretty harsh for the original family system. The person who has partially
moved away and into a new system, will have much more energy for the new system,
whatever they say to themselves, or whatever promises they may make. This especially shows
up as an issue when the apparently aggrieved party appears to know nothing of the affair –
people looking on who know the whole truth will notice how the system tried to reveal in
undercurrents so that the truth avails itself.
4. The balance of giving and receiving needs to be maintained - common sense (and a great
deal of research) has shown that balance must be maintained in all things, especially family
systems. Research of a phenomenon in America looking into why training doctors often
appeared to leave wives just as they qualified. What became clear was that the partner gave up
a great deal for the training partner to succeed, who went on to believe they could never repay
the cost of that gift to them. The balance could only be satisfied by them leaving, otherwise
they would always be in debt to the giver, which would imbalance the system. Harsh, but no
less true for that.
These laws can easily be broken – here are a few examples:
when babies are aborted or stillborn and not mourned or talked about
when children or young adults die and are not mourned
when children are given away for adoption and no longer talked about
when adoptive parents do not acknowledge the natural parents of their children
when previous partners or important relationships are not acknowledged and honoured
between couples
when extra-marital relationships are kept secret
when the experiences of war are not remembered and the dead honoured
when there are family secrets
Chapter 4 - Shamanic elements
When observing it is clear that some elements of a constellation do not use scientific
constructs per se and some observers question whether the facilitator is actually working in
“another world” in order to gain the insights that appear to be relevant to situations he or she
finds him or herself in.
There is certainly an “other worldly” element to the work. In chapter 4 I describe what
actually is going on, and experience shows that the client, in setting up the field, is
subconsciously enabling any participants in the exercise to carry a tiny part of their energy
for a while. They borrow the elements that show up, and are able to describe, and comment. It
is that that appears as a sort of shamanic practice. Occasionally some facilitators will
experiment by asking questions of the participants to check a hunch, that may well come from
experience of similar set ups. For instance when grief shows up, it is fairly safe to assume that
- 7. a death may be involved – so the facilitator may ask “did so and so have any children that
died, still births abortions or miscarriages?” and that might appear to be so insightful to the
uninitiated that it looks like a shamanic knowing.
Chapter 5 – The mechanics of a workshop
What happens in a constellation workshop? Who is in a constellation?
The facilitator – someone who guides the process, but who remains as far as possible, outside
the process
A seeker - someone who feels the urge to look at their stuff, right now – they will probably be
a bit fired up, enthusiastic – their moment has arrived.
Representatives – people who will get asked to represent other people during the process –
placeholders certainly, but sometimes quite a bit more
Participants – the rest of the people in the workshop – they sit around the edge of the working
area and hold the energy
– they just observe mostly – they will get a chance to be a seeker, or a participant later
Only the facilitator will necessarily have had prior experience of constellation work, but
some, maybe all of the others will have attended workshops before – even participants get a
big learning from the work.
Everyone sits around in a circle of chairs – preferably about eighteen to twenty feet across the
circle. The facilitator will have picked a place to sit, and have a vacant chair next to him or
her. He or she will probably do a short meditation, so that everyone is calm, relaxed and body
conscious – by that I mean that people become aware of what is going on in their own body,
so that they can express changes that occur – these may become quite important as the work
progresses. The circle inside the chairs is called the field – like a field of energy, and is
identified to establish boundaries to the work.
Firstly a seeker is chosen. The facilitator may choose, or ask who is ready, or maybe another
method is used. The seeker comes and sits by the facilitator. The conversation that ensues is
simply to establish who are the important players in the system described by the client – it will
obviously involve a mother father and the client’s representative if the work is dealing with
family of origin.
Chapter 6 – Why run a constellation?
Having established that a) there are laws, and b) that they may have been offended in some in
the past and that c) balance being restored without someone having to say commit suicide in
the system, it seems obvious to do something. Normal counselling and coaching focusses on
the client and aspects that are directly in contact or have been in contact with the client – past
histories and landscapes may express an influence that is noted, but in the constellation model,
- 8. all aspects of the life and work of the client, all the histories and contexts can be externally
represented so that an overview becomes much clearer – even in respect of things that are
unknown.
Every child that has been adopted, will obviously have had a birth mother and father for a
time – they may have died, they may be living another life elsewhere, and the counsellor or
therapist may be stuck with the shame blame betrayal or abandonment issues that the client
presents. The constellation model is able to notice that the client is alive, well, and in that
sense, successful, and therefore got everything they needed to be exactly who they are – in
constellation modelling words “they got enough” – and that revelation can be of enormous
value and be sincerely empowering. All the shame blame betrayal or abandonment can be
shed and the client feels entirely different, permanently from that moment.
Chapter 7 – Tools for the job
Constellations can use a variety of tools to externally represent the inner workings of a
system.
1. People – in a workshop the distinct advantage of using people to represent other people
from within a system, is that they can talk and express verbally, and emotionally aspects that
they gather from the permission given to them. The facilitator is able to ask direct questions
and get direct answers that come from the felt sense of the placing within the constellation,
and does not require asking the client about things that show up but that may remain
unexplained.
- 14. seems to completely disappear.
Sometimes a person will take on the illness of another, almost by demand. In this example I
am using a woman in her mid-fifties. Her children have left home, her libido has changed and
her mother in her eighties is having some eyesight issues. The client feels less needed and
respected in this phase – she has yet to have grandchildren and her mother begins to need
transporting around. The client feels a normal debt of gratitude to her mother who raised her
“in difficult circumstances”. She begins to say out loud “Don’t worry mum, I’ll do it for you”.
She begins to say to her friends that she could cope with the illness her mother begins to
experience, better than her mother. She begins to say “I’ll carry the illness for you”. It is
unlikely that her statements are quite as direct, but the intention is set. The outcome is that the
client gets ill too, and then feels terrible that she cannot look after her mother either, and she
hasn’t helped her mother’s illness. This feeling responsible for the care of others is for the
client to feel towards children and grandchildren, not for parents, but the issue of parenting
parents has become endemic in many western societies. The constellation enables the client to
see the futility of such behaviour in the context of the health and wellbeing of the system, and
can therefore inhabit a richer world.
A book - specific to health constellations will be published later this year, and will be
referenced here in later publications.
Money
Surprisingly perhaps, many attitudes to money come from our history. Those raised in
poverty may well display attitudes that are very different from children raised in plenty.
Exploring the context of your own money mind-set through constellations is a simple and
very powerful way of settling into a new pattern of life in respect to money. Workshops I have
run in that context have displayed many fundamental attitudes and influences that shape the
way we regard our achievements. If you observe a 1000 year old tree, you see it as
remarkable, and extraordinary and there may be many superlative qualities attributed to the
tree – just for being there that long. Many people by contrast feel they must have done
something other than be alive to regard themselves as successful. I have spoken to many
clients who have had interesting lives, children and grandchildren but who nevertheless feel
ashamed of their existence because they cannot pass a few millions on to those children – they
feel like they have failed. Those people will get enormous value from constellating their
understanding of money – and as an add-on they may begin to see their own children as of
more intrinsic value more than ever before.
A book - specific to Money constellations will be published later this year, and will be
referenced here in later publications.
Business
Businesses need to adapt to change quickly in the 21st century, and it is often difficult to see
the hidden dynamics of a business strategy. Constellations enables managers to test theories,
and to understand who are the key players in a project, and what dynamics need to be
